The Christ ideal is unexplainable in words. The omnipresent intelligence, which is in the rock, in the tree, in the animal, in man it shows its gradual unfoldment. 

It is a fact accepted by both science and metaphysics. This intelligence shows its culmination in the complete development of human personality and in the personality such as that of Jesus Christ, which was recognized by his followers-to-be. The followers of Buddha recognized the same unfoldment of the object of creation in Gautama Buddha and the Hindus saw the same in Sri Krishna. In Moses, the followers of Moses recognized that and maintained their belief for thousands of years. And the same culmination of the all-pervading intelligence was recognized in Mohammed by his followers.

No man has the right to claim this stage of development, nor can anyone compare very well two persons recognized by their followers as the perfect spirit of God. For a thoughtless person it is easy to express an opinion and to compare two people, but a thoughtful person first thinks whether he has arrived at that stage where he can compare two such personalities. No doubt a question of belief is different; neither can the belief of the Muslims be the same as that of the Jewish people, nor can the Christian belief be the same of that of the Buddhists. However, the wise understands all beliefs, for he is one with them all.

And the question whether a person was destined to be a complete personality may be answered that there is no person who is not destined to be something. Every person has his life destined beforehand, and the light of the purpose, for which he was born and is meant to accomplish in life, has already been kindled in his soul. Therefore, whatever be the grade of a person’s evolution, he is certainly destined to be so. Discussion of the lives that the different prophets have lived and of the superiority of one over the other seems to be a very primitive attempt on the part of man.   Not knowing the condition of that particular time when the prophet lived, nor the psychology of the people at the time when the prophet existed, one is ready to judge that personality by the standard of ideas which one knows to-day, and does not do that personality justice. And when a person compares one particular teaching of a prophet with the teaching of another prophet, one also makes a great mistake, because the teachings of the prophets have not always been of the same kind. 

The teaching is like the composition of a composer who writes music in all the different keys, and who puts the highest note and the lowest notes and all the notes of different octaves in his music.

The teachings of the prophets are nothing but the answer to the demands of the individual and the collective souls. Sometimes a childlike soul comes and asks, and an answer is given appropriate to his understanding. And an old soul comes and asks and he is given an answer suited to his evolution. When two teachings are brought together, a teaching which Krishna gave to a child and a teaching which Buddha gave to an old soul, it is not doing justice to compare. It is easy to say, “I do not like the music of Wagner, I simply hate it.” But I should think it would be better to become Wagner first and then to hate if one likes. To weigh, to measure, to examine, to pronounce an opinion on a great personality, one must rise to that development first. Otherwise, the best thing is a respectful attitude. Respect in any form is the way of the wise.

Then there are simple people who hear about miracles, who give all the importance to what they have read, perhaps in the traditions about the miracles performed by the great souls, but in that way they limit the greatness of God to a certain miracle. If God is eternal, then His miracle is eternal, it is always there. There is no such a thing as unnatural, nor such a thing as impossible. Things seem unnatural because they are unusual; things seem impossible because they are beyond man’s limited reason. Life itself is a phenomenon, a miracle. The more one knows about it, the more one lives conscious of the wonderfulness of life, the more one realizes that if there is any phenomenon or miracle, it is man’s birthright. Who has done it? It is man who can do it and who will do it. But what is essential is not a miracle; the most essential is the understanding of life.

To be continued…